Snow Economics

December snow chaos gives Sweden a last push to increase GDP for 2012.

Despite imposing negative effects on production in general, it doesn´t automatically mean negative effects on the Swedish economy. Airports and train stations among others need to increase labor in order to deal with the huge amount of stranded travelers. The postal services which have difficulties delivering mail due to snow and delays in shipping have announced they will need more labor. Health /emergency services must increase the number of staff on duty due to increased driving time for ambulances, and not to mention the increased number of bone fractures from falling accidents.

While some sectors are affected negatively other businesses and retailers find the snow to be profitable. Bus/coach and taxi companies, hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants among others, located in chaos areas benefit and so do their employees in form of possibility of more working hours. And for the snow removal sector this means serious business.

The negative aspects of this weather are of course the bottle-necks, lost production, utility losses and worst of all, lives lost. In the long run there are most likely no gains at all from the increased expenditure. The bill will of course be picked up by the tax-payers, and I would not be surprised if many municipalities will have already blown their snow removal budgets by the time this is over. And it´s only December...

Baan Ki Moon recently said we must get used to extreme weather events, hence extreme is "the new normal", which brings me to Planalytics! A company providing the actionable information companies need to understand an optimize the impact of weather on their business. An interesting idea for business I think!
To visit their webbsite click on their logo